Today's development of multi-standard radio access network equipment for, for example, Global System for Mobile communications (GSM), Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA) and Long Term Evolution (LTE) is in full progress. The first products practically only allow for network nodes to be co-located in the same cabinets. However, the development advances towards a common hardware (HW) and software (SW) for these nodes in the cabinet, and from a rather static resource allocation per access towards a more dynamic resource allocation of, for example, transmit power and transport network capacity.
Resource management is currently used within each radio access network to distribute and utilize available resources as efficiently as possible. The different characteristics of each resource are considered, as well as the different kinds of services utilizing the resources. A variety of services like best-effort data and real-time voice are catered for, all with different requirements. Application layer signaling and radio access network internal control signaling create additional data flows that need to be handled. Each flow is prioritized and resources allocated according to the specific requirements. At present, for three radio access technologies, GSM, WCDMA and LTE, resource management functionality is distributed in different nodes.
A simple state-of-the-art way of dividing the resources between the accesses may be to assign a fixed share to each access, a so called fixed allocation of resource sharing. There should not be any overlap in resource capacity to avoid over-utilization, but it is well-known which partition of each resource the access can utilize which simplifies design basically, the accesses operate completely in parallel, within the scope of a multi-standard equipment. The resource share may be configured based on, for example, estimated traffic mix and load, or just according to the operators' migration plans for different accesses. However, there are drawbacks in potential under-utilization of resources, and a lack of possibility to utilize the common hardware and network capacity to increase efficiency and service quality. The last aspect goes back to the difficulty to estimate the traffic demands, due to traffic variations, the relative importance of different services in different accesses, the resource requirements to fulfill the requested bit rate, delay, packet loss, etc, and the inability to adapt to changes, for example, due to shifts in access utilization at different peak hours.
A more flexible way of dividing the resources between the accesses is to have one part of the resources fixed allocated to one/some of the accesses, a so called Semi-dynamic allocation of resource sharing. Alternatively, giving one of the accesses highest priority when dynamically allocating the resources. The remaining part of the resources is then dynamically allocated between the accesses reflecting the instantaneous traffic or load situation. One example of semi-dynamic resource sharing would be to give GSM the highest priority when allocating resources, and WCDMA and LTE are sharing the left-over resources. This method has been discussed in conjunction with early multi-standard base stations.
The most flexible way of dividing resources between the accesses is to allocate resources completely dynamically, so called dynamic allocation of resource sharing. Still the allocation could be based on the same criteria as when configuring fixed resource shares, but with the difference that the resource shares can be adapted to reflect the instantaneous traffic or load situation. This gives the best possibilities to increase the resource utilization, and also to follow changes in the traffic mix or density. However, prior art solution may not provide a resource allocation by which it will be able to ensure the appropriate service quality.